Advantages of Using No-Till in Chickpea Cultivation in East Azarbaijan Province (A Case Study of Charoimak County)

Background and objectives: This study aimed to investigate the effect of tillage and sowing techniques on chickpea growth and yield in the Charoimak district of Eastern Azarbaijan. Maintaining crop residues on the soil surface by using conservation tillage significantly reduces weed germination. Conservation tillage improves carbon fixation in the soil and significantly prevents its release into the atmosphere.
Materials and methods: The study was conducted in a randomized complete block design with five replications. Some parameters were measured, such as establishment percent, plant height, number of main branches, stem weight, leaf number, leaf index, leaf eight, root depth, grain weight in each plant, biomass of plants, and harvest index. At the seed maturity stage, chickpea plants were randomly harvested and the desired traits were measured. Plants from each plot were harvested from the middle rows of the plots after considering the 0.5 m margin effect.
Results: Linear sowing with a combinate machine and conservation tillage method resulted in a 30.6 % and 39.7 % increase in seed yield compared to traditional sowing. Planting with protective tillers statistically caused a similar increase in grain yield. Whereas, among the main components of grain yield, the conservation tillage treatment increased the number of grains per plant as compared to linear sowing and increased this trait by 26.1%, while the treatment of Linear implantation increased this attribute by 14.6%. One hundred seed weight increased by only 14% compared to traditional seed sowing under linear sowing. Percentage of chickpea seed emergence only increased the effect of planting with protective tillage by 10.9% compared to traditional seed planting. Vegetative traits such as leaf weight and leaf area were increased under linear tillage and with conservation tillage, which was increased by planting with conservation tillage.
Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that there was no significant difference in germination percentage, number of leaves, number of main branches, and stem weight between planting with a compound tiller and traditional seed planting. However, planting with a direct-tillage row cultivator led to a significant increase in these traits. Specifically, the direct tillage treatment resulted in increases of 10.9%, 21.8%, 76.9%, and 82.9% in these traits, respectively. Notably, the direct tillage treatment had the greatest impact on stem mass. Additionally, in terms of plant height, root development depth, seed mass per plant, and seed yield per hectare, both the combined tillage and direct tillage treatments caused statistically significant and similar increases. Among these traits, the most substantial increase attributed to the direct tillage treatment was observed in leaf dry weight, which rose by 185%. The study found that the grain yield under the direct tillage treatment increased primarily due to an increase in the number of seeds. In contrast, the combined tillage treatment improved grain yield by increasing both the number of seeds and the weight of one hundred seeds.
 Overall, Conservation tillage methods had a higher yield than conventional systems and there was no significant difference between yields of conservative methods treatments. Concerning the reduction of costs, a direct drilling method is suggested. Of course, some important factors like machine prices and investment, the time needed to complete sowing operation in each system, and fuel consumption should be processed more.
It is suggested that:
- To ensure the results and generalize them, the experiments be repeated in different regions of the province.
- The effect of planting methods on the physical and chemical properties of the soil affecting the growth of chickpea plants should be investigated.
- The effect of planting methods on the phenological characteristics of chickpeas should be investigated.
- The effect of planting methods on the biological and symbiotic characteristics of chickpeas should be investigated.